Syllabus

Interaction designing is surprisingly fictional: it imagines scenarios and invents stories. So it shares with novels, poetry, cinema and dance, for example, some central ideas and techniques — notably narrative, plot, simile and metaphor.

Like other inventors of fiction, moreover, interaction designers often suffer from the equivalent of writer’s block. One answer to creative reticence or paralysis is forced speed-designing: down and dirty, fast and furious.

This course was a breathless series of paper, Pentel and Post-It exercises exploring the observation and analysis of interaction facts and the invention of interaction fictions. Students spent time
notating and imagining interactive sequences & critiquing and inventing mental models.

Learning Expectations
Design agility and to gain an appreciation of the role of narration and metaphor in interaction design.